


A Small Town in Maine

by AnonymousLaila



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, a little angst maybe?, but there's gonna be plenty of plot and action, i don't know how long this is going to be tbh, lots of fluff tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-04-18 20:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14220789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousLaila/pseuds/AnonymousLaila
Summary: While on a cross-country roadtrip, Kara and Lena stumble upon the seemingly picturesque town of Storybrooke, Maine. Though its residents, most notably its sheriff and mayor duo, Emma Swan and Regina Mills, appear nice enough, it is not only clear to the National City roadtrippers that they are not welcome but that there is more to the small town - and their encounters in it - than meets the eye.When Kara and Lena find themselves unable to leave and Regina and Emma begin to see themselves reflected in the young outsiders, the four women start to realize that their strange circumstances aren't due to chance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is exactly what it looks like: a Supercorp/SwanQueen crossover. Look at me shamelessly smashing both of my OTPS from different shows together in one story.
> 
> I've had the idea for this fic for a while now, but the way this year's Zimbio poll turned out with both of these spectacular f/f couples in the final championship round gave me the motivation to actually write it. 
> 
> I've never written SQ fic before; in fact I bingewatched all of OUAT last year so I've never written anything OUAT related ever. This is my first crack at it so I hope it turns out okay?

Kara wondered, not for the first time that morning, how it was that humans had the patience to engage in something as tedious as car rides.

"Can we make a stop at the next diner that comes up? I'm starving," she complained as she leaned back against the black leather seat, head tilted up towards the inner roof of the car. When that view became too boring to look at, she settled for the one out the passenger window, watching the forest scenery of Maine whiz by in a green blur.

"Kara, we had breakfast two hours ago." Lena kept both eyes, hidden as they were by her favorite pair of dark sunglasses, locked on the rather empty highway road as she spoke.

"Yeah, I know, it's been _forever_."

The two women had spent the better part of the morning in Lena's silver Lexus, on day two of their drive up the Northeast coast. The week long roadtrip across the country had been amazing, rich with sightseeing and meals at upscale restaurants and nights at five star hotels, but Kara was really starting to feel the effects of being cooped up in a moving vehicle for hours on end. The drives to and from Midvale with Alex were nowhere near this long.

"Maybe I can drive for a little while, Lena?"

"Oh no, this baby is still recovering from the last time you attempted to drive."

Kara scoffed. "Uh, listen, I'm a _wonderful_ driver, okay? It's not my fault the roads of Massachusetts were filled with so many potholes."

Lena chuckled, earning an offended look and protest from her friend.

"Hey! I never crash when I'm _flying_!"

"You would make a great pilot then, Kara.” After making an exit off the highway and merging onto a tiny local road, Lena added, "I know you're getting antsy. Tell you what. I'll pull over somewhere and you can fly around for a while."

"Nah, that'll just make me hungrier." And she punctuated her decision by pressing a button on the car's dashboard, allowing N’Sync to blare from its speakers. The slight expression of approval on Lena’s face at the music was enough to make Kara forget her hunger – when focusing her super vision she could see the twinkle of Lena’s glittering green eyes behind the dark shades.

The forests of Maine had nothing on those eyes.

They drove in relative silence for the next 8 minutes until Kara felt it.

The oddest sensation suddenly ripped through her body, like every inch of her was being sucked through a vacuum of space and then released again, pushing her backwards onto her seat, but the feeling disappeared as soon as she became aware of it. The car came to an abrupt stop as Lena pressed hard on the brakes and turned to her. Kara didn't even have to ask whether Lena had felt it too - the answer was written all over what she could see of her friend's sunglasses-adorned face and what she could hear of her rapidly beating heart.

Kara quickly shut off the car's music as Lena whispered, "What the hell was that?"

"No idea." The surrounding air felt a little different now to Kara, felt _charged_ with something that made her skin tingle in an unfamiliar but not unpleasant way. She wondered if maybe her super senses had just been thrown off and momentarily worried for the possible loss of her powers.

"Do you think maybe we entered a force field of some sort?" Lena asked.

"Out here in the middle of an empty road?"

"You're right, that sounds unrealistic."

"There's probably some wacky power plant nearby."

That drew a laugh from her friend. “… wacky power plant?” The brakes were released as Lena slowly got the car rolling again, attempting to forget about what they had both felt.

Had Kara and Lena taken a moment to step out of the car, they would have noticed the solid line drawn across the stretch of road they had just driven over, signaling the boundary of the land they had now entered and of the spell they had just trespassed.

No, the only other hint that they had entered a new segment of territory was a sign that appeared on the right side of the road a few minutes later.

"Welcome to Storybrooke," Kara read out loud.

"Weird, I didn’t see that on the map a few minutes ago,” Lena said as she took a second look at the GPS. “But… here it is now.”

"I hope they've got good food here."

“Well, Maine is known for its lobsters.”

“No, I meant real people food.”

 The space between them filled with Lena’s soft laugh at that. 

They rolled into the town's limits shortly afterwards, their first glimpse of its residents being a group of stout men marching out of the woods, pickaxes swung over their shoulders as they laughed and sang amongst themselves. Kara was so taken with the scene - "They look like dwarves, Lena!" - that she had to fight the impulse to take a quick picture of them as the Lexus drove by. 

Their car was met with stares – evidently, visitors to this town were infrequent, and visitors driving anything more expensive than a Toyota pickup even more so - and the two roadtrippers were grateful for the dark tinted windows that Lena rolled up. Kara, however, rolled hers back down and let out a delightful cry as a bespectacled man walked a Dalmatian down the sidewalk next to them by a red light.

"Hey, mister, your dog is adorable!"

Startled, the man turned to the Lexus (which Lena had thoughtfully pulled over) and the bright-eyed blonde poking her head out of the passenger window. His perplexed brow smoothed out somewhat as he gave her a warm smile. "His name is Pongo.”

“Ohhh, like the dad dog in the Dalmatian movie!”

The man nodded as if he knew what she meant. “He’s the friendliest dog you'll ever meet. Would you like to pet him?"

"Uh, sure!" Kara introduced herself and Lena, then reached her arm out of the car to pet the Dalmatian.

"I must say," the man began, "I don't think I have ever met you ladies before."

"Oh, we're from out of town," Lena said.

"Yeah, we're on a roadtrip, actually," Kara added. "Just passing through."

The man did not seem very pleased with this information. "Wow... well, we don't get visitors here very often. Storybrooke is pretty... pretty off the radar as a tourist destination. But welcome to our little town. I hope you two enjoy your time here." And with that, he offered them a nervous grin, yanked Pongo's leash and spedwalked in the opposite direction.

"What was his problem?" Lena wondered aloud as she started driving again.

"Maybe he suddenly remembered that he had to be somewhere else. Hey look, a diner!"

In truth, Granny's Diner bore little resemblance to a food establishment. From a distance it looked like a two-story house that someone tacked a blue sign and neon lights on. But Kara could smell the aromas of mac and cheese and coffee wafting from the open windows. She could also pick up the various voices of customers within the diner from a block away (guess her powers were still working fine after all). The place was packed, though parking was fairly easy to find – Kara noticed that people in this town preferred to walk over driving – and the two young women walked right into the diner, arms around one another’s waists, amid stares.

If Kara looked slightly out of place in the dimly lit restaurant, Lena stuck out like a sore thumb in her designer jeans and dark blazer, expensive gold watch wrapped around her wrist. Kara, imagining everyone in the diner’s reaction to Lena pulling out her black Amex to pay, offered to pay for lunch with cash instead.

“Are you nice young ladies from out of town?” asked the white-haired woman behind the counter (who had to be ‘Granny’, Kara presumed) after Kara ordered two grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate for herself and a salad for Lena.

 “Is it that obvious?” Lena asked in response.

“I know everybody here in Storybrooke and you are a pair of fresh faces to me.” Granny leaned in slightly with a smile. “I presume you aren’t from the Enchanted Forest, we haven’t had a portal leading there popping up around here in a while. So where are you two from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Kara and Lena shared a look. _Enchanted Forest? Portal?_ “We’re from National City,” Lena answered.

Granny’s eyes narrowed. “What realm is that in?”

“It’s on the West Coast,” Kara added. “We’re on a cross country roadtrip.”

 “So, you drove here? Across the town line?” The elderly woman peered at them suspiciously behind her glasses, and despite her otherwise kind demeanor Kara suddenly felt awkward with the conversation.

“Uh… yeah, I guess.”

Some of the color drained from Granny’s rosy cheeks. “Oh…. well, you girlfriends enjoy your lunch.”

Lena was about to insist that they were just friends when their food arrived. She let the subject drop but could not forget the tone in the elderly woman’s voice.

“This is a strange town,” she remarked as they dug into their food. “People here seem friendly enough but they don’t really take well to outsiders.”

“Eh, a lot of small towns are like that,” Kara said between cheesy bites. “When I first moved to Midvale as a kid everyone there thought I was a freak.” She took a large gulp of her drink, clearly not affected in the slightest by its scalding hotness. “I mean, I kinda _was_ a freak considering you know what, but maybe that’s something worth looking into. Think Snapper will approve of a comparative article I write on Midvale and Storybrooke? Something about small town xenophobic mindsets?”

"Oh, I doubt he'll think this place warrants anything more than a silly puff piece."

“Hmm, you’re probably right on that.”

"What's a puff piece?"

The question came from a dark haired teenager sitting on the stool next to Kara, nursing his own cup of hot chocolate in his hands. “Sorry, I… I couldn't help but overhear."

Whoops. Kara had hoped that their conversation would be drowned out by the chatter of the two dozen other customers in the diner, but apparently not. "Well,” She started, turning to the teenage boy, “a puff piece is an article you write in praise of something, whether it's a celebrity, or a... a really good restaurant."  A journal lay open in front of the kid on the counter, a pen resting on top of its nearly blank pages, and that along with the striped scarf around his neck gave him the appearance and aura of a young poet with an old soul. Kara warmed up to him almost immediately, his eavesdropping instantly forgiven.

"And you want to write an article about our town? Are you a journalist?" The kid looked like the idea sounded almost thrilling to him, though the alarm in his voice did not escape Kara’s notice.

"I’m a reporter, yes, but nah, I’m sort of just here on vacation..."

“… with her boss. That’s me, by the way. Lena Luthor,” Lena added with a smile and an extended hand, which the kid shook firmly, albeit with some hesitation.

“We’re also friends,” Kara huffed. “We were friends _before_ she became my boss.”

Taking another sip of his drink, the boy cocked his head thoughtfully as he studied them both. “You guys just got here, right? I guess you haven't met too many people in town then?”

“Uh, no, we haven't. To be honest we've only been here for about an hour.”

“Well,” he said, “I could show you guys around Storybrooke if you want. I can even get you a meeting with our mayor, if you do decide to write about our town.”

“The _mayor_? You can arrange that?” Kara stared at the boy incredulously, searching his earnest face for a hint of a lie. “Will the mayor put aside the time to meet with us, though?”

It would have been a silly question if they were anywhere else in the country. After all, while Kara might merely be an unknown junior reporter herself, everybody made time for Lena. Who knew, though, whether the citizens of a small seaside town in the middle of nowhere had even heard of the Luthors.

The grin on the boy’s face spread from ear to ear. “Um, yeah, she would if I asked. She’s my mom.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gal pals all meet one another for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to update - I actually had most of this chapter written ages ago but there were a bunch of narrative decisions affecting later chapters that took some time to make. For example, deciding whether I want Hook in this story. I still haven't made my mind up on that one to be honest, though I know what people's answers to that would be. Anyways, I guess to make up for the wait this chapter is twice as long as the first.
> 
> By the way, text messages are shown in bold italics.

  _Ugh, these split_ _ends are gross._

Emma studied the tragic ends of her blonde hair as she tipped her chair back as far as it would go, balancing the wooden piece of furniture precariously on its hind legs. She’d fallen off twice in the past 3 hours, injury by chair being the only source of entertainment in the sheriff’s station aside from the games on her phone that she’d long ago gotten sick of. The crime scene in Storybrooke was always fairly slow, but Saturday mornings were particularly dull for the sheriff who, aside from issuing DUIs for dwarves that were somehow still drunk from the night before, rarely had any calls. Nor did she have the patience to make headway into the mounting pile of paperwork on her desk. She was planning on saving that for Monday.

So Emma spent her morning looking forward to dinner that night at the Millses, wondering what she should wear or whether she was due for a haircut. She doubted the current state of her hair would pass Regina’s scrutiny.

Not that she ever actually cared what Regina thought of her appearance, of course.

Speaking of Regina, it was close to lunchtime, wasn’t it? Regina most likely hadn’t eaten yet, Saturday mornings being the time she dedicated herself strenuously to most of her weekend workload so that she’d be free for the afternoon. She usually spent the early hours locked in her office with little more than a cup of coffee for sustenance, often forgetting to eat.

Before Emma could decide on whether to bring lunch to the mayor, a series of pings came from her phone resting on her desk. When the first one arrived, Emma, taken aback by the sound, jumped a little and found herself crashing to the floor atop her overturned chair. Wincing slightly from what she knew were going to become bruises the next day, she pulled herself back into a sitting position on the chair and reached for her phone to find multiple unread messages.

The texts were from Henry, arriving at seemingly lightning speed to the Swan-Mills group chat he and Emma had set up with Regina.

 ** _We have a little emergency moms_** , read the first, followed by **_there are these outsiders in town_ , and **_**outsiders as in regular people from out of storybrooke!!!!!!**. _ The fourth ping came with a picture message, a slightly blurry photo of two women taken from behind at what looked to be Granny's, one dark haired, the other with a dirty blond ponytail.

Emma slowly stood up, her eyes unable to tear themselves from the lit phone screen. Outsiders in town. As in, non-fairytale folk in Storybrooke. Her mind raced at once.

_How did they cross the spell barrier?_

_Have they seen anything yet?_

While still getting over the initial shock, another text bubble appeared, this time coming from Regina. _**Are you at the diner, Henry? I'll be right over.** _

_**There's no need mom** , _was the response from Henry, **_I'm bringing them to your office now._**

_**Are you sure?**. _

__**Yeah they seem harmless. I talked with them and they're pretty nice. We're on our way to the office rn**. _ _

__Not wanting to be left out of the excitement, Emma typed, ** _I’ll meet you all at the office too._**_ _

____

**_And who, I may ask, will be watching over the sheriff’s station if you come, Emma_?**

__

Sigh. Count on Regina to try and keep her away from the fun. **_Dad should be back from morning patrol soon so I’ll have him take over. It’s not like I have anything else to do here._  **

__

R: **_Perhaps that paperwork I requested of you yesterday?_ **

__

E: _**I’ll get that to you by Monday, okay? I promise** _

__

She paused, then sent another text. **_Henry, make sure they interact with as few people as possible._**

__

_**On it**._

__

Emma grabbed her keys and dashed out of the station to where her car stood parked out front. So much for an uneventful Saturday.

__

 

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                                                                  _________________________________________

__

 

__

“Man, this is nuts. What are the odds that we run into the town’s mayor’s son at a diner just after arriving here?” Kara asked as Lena started the car and shifted it into drive. Ahead of the Lexus, the teenage boy who had introduced himself as Henry adjusted a black helmet on his head and rolled his bike onto the street. “I mean, how do we know he isn’t pranking us?”

__

“Because as a Luthor I know deception like the back of my hand. I can tell he’s not lying.”

__

“Just like how you were able to tell that I was Supergirl?” Kara teased. Lena’s obliviousness to her best friend being Supergirl until Kara finally came out and told her a month ago was a frequent topic of humor between the two of them.

__

Lena chuckled. “Well, my intuition is a little more accurate around other people,” she said sheepishly.

__

“Okay but, like, you’d think the freaking _mayor_ would be too busy, I don’t know, running the town to bother meeting with a couple of tourists. But she agreed to see us so quickly.”

__

“I mean, Storybrooke isn’t exactly Metropolis or National City. How busy can she even be on a daily basis, much less on a Saturday?”

__

Henry had started cycling on the road and they were following him in the Lexus, driving down Main Street at a pace slower than the 25 mph speed limit. The four minute drive led them to a large yellow building adorned with white columns in the front and a sign reading Storybrooke Town Hall. As they pulled up to the semicircular driveway, so did a yellow Volkswagen Beetle.

__

Lena carefully parked her car as a blonde woman emerged from the yellow car, squinting slightly as she observed the Lexus.

__

Henry had already locked his bike at the bike rack by the side of the building. "Ma!" He called out to the blonde woman, running towards her.

__

She shifted her gaze and smiled at him. "Hey kid." She then redirected her attention back on them, watching them walk somewhat tentatively towards her. "Hi. I'm Emma Swan." She extended a hand towards Lena, who was closest.

__

The latter surveyed the older woman, taking in her bold red leather jacket, jeans and dirty boots. For a town that was seemingly quaint and picturesque, Emma dressed a bit too casually for an elected official, Lena thought.

__

Or maybe all small town mayors wore clothes and drove cars like that? Lena wouldn't know, having grown up in Metropolis herself.

__

“Lena Luthor,” she said, shaking Emma’s hand, before Kara stepped forward and introduced herself as well. Her breath caught in her throat as she shook hands with Emma, for the tingly feeling in the air that followed her into town came off of the older blonde woman in waves.

__

"You must be the mayor, right?" Kara asked.

__

"Mayor?" Emma chuckled. "No, no, I'm the sheriff of this town."

__

Perplexity creased onto the two younger women's brows. Kara turned to Henry. "You told us that your mother was the _mayor_ ," she said, in a light tone that wasn't exactly accusatory but demanded an explanation.

__

"Yeah, she is. This is my other mom. I've got two of them."

__

Kara and Lena looked to Emma for validation of the boy’s claim and the sheriff nodded at them somewhat sheepishly. “It’s a bit of a long story. Now, I assume you two are here to see the mayor?”

__

“Uh, yeah, um your son said she’ll be expecting us.” Though exactly what interest the head of this small town could possibly have in two random road trippers Kara couldn’t really imagine.

__

"Well then, in that case, we better go in, now. Mayor Mills doesn't like to be kept waiting."

__

She said “Mayor Mills” like she wasn’t quite used to using such a formal title, which Kara supposed made sense in way given that she shared a child with the mayor and all..

__

Emma held her keys out to her car to lock its doors before making her way towards the town hall with Henry by her side, only looking back once to make sure that Kara and Lena were following her. She took quick and long strides, walking in a manner that started off as confident but then sort of devolved into harried and rushed, as if she just could not wait to get inside.

__

“Henry,” Kara whispered to Lena with wide eyes and a grin while they were a safe enough distance behind the two Storybrooke residents, “has _two_ moms. Isn’t that cool?”

__

“Kara, you and I have both had two mothers as well.”

__

“Yeah, but they weren't, like _together_. Wait till I tell Alex about this.”

__

Lena managed a small smile at her friend’s adorable enthusiasm as they sped to catch up with their new acquaintances.

__

 

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                                                                  _________________________________________

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__

Storybrooke Town Hall was fairly empty. The only faces the four of them encountered on their walk down the halls were that of an elderly bearded man, and of a surly woman who smelled vaguely of raw meat.

__

Emma and Henry led the young women around a corner to a wooden door that read

__

REGINA MILLS

__

QUEEN

__

 which Lena pointed out to Kara with a slight scoff.

__

"'Queen'? Somebody's got an inflated sense of self importance," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth, so low that only Kara's super hearing could pick up on it.

__

The sheriff, though, noticed their double take at the door's sign. "You'll understand when you meet her, trust me." The disclaimer sounded apologetic in nature, though the soft smile on her face when she took a glance at the sign herself did not go unnoticed by Lena or Kara.

__

Emma knocked twice on the door, calling out “hey, it’s me and Henry” as she did so. “We’ve got our two new friends with us as well.”

__

The “come in, the door’s open” that came from within the office in response sounded muffled to Lena, but Kara heard the rich, velvety voice crystal clear.

__

They walked in to a spacious office done in black and white and came face to face with one of the most beautiful women Kara and Lena had ever seen.

__

Well, they didn’t exactly see her face at first. She was sitting at her desk, dark head bent slightly over the papers she was scribbling on. A half-filled Styrofoam cup sat on the desk within her arm’s reach, a cell phone resting next to it. After a few seconds of them all standing there in silence, she looked up.

__

Kara drew in a sharp breath.

__

The mayor was dressed in an impeccably fitted black blazer, a blue silk blouse peeking out from underneath and bringing color to an otherwise monochromatic office. From what they could see of her thighs and bare calves underneath her desk, a fitted pencil skirt completed the look. She parted her dark lipstick-adorned lips slightly as she regarded them all for a second before cracking a small yet stunning smile.

__

She might not have been an actual queen but she sure as hell looked the part. At the very least, she looked as though she deserved whatever conceitedness she apparently possessed. 

__

“Good afternoon,” Mayor Mills said, putting down her pen and crossing her olive-toned hands together. She made fleeting eye contact with Emma and Kara could have sworn she could detect the sheriff’s heart beat quickening ever so slightly.

__

“Hey, mom,” Henry moved forward from behind all of them, walking right up to the mayor’s desk.

__

Most of Mayor Mill’s cool professionalism melted away as she positively beamed at him. “Hi, sweetie. Why don’t you introduce me to your new friends?”

__

“Okay, uh…” He gestured towards the two young women. “This is Kara – Kara, that’s your name, right? - and she’s a journalist, and this is her boss-friend, Lena Luthor.”

__

Mayor Mills raised an eyebrow. “… boss-friend?”

__

“I own a media empire, which Kara works for as a reporter,” Lena stepped in, her arms crossed in front of her as she spoke. “We’re also really good friends.”

__

The mayor nodded as if she understood. “I see. So,” she leaned in forward, smiling not unkindly with her coffee brown eyes fixed on them both, “what brings you two to our charming little town?”  
Had either Kara or Lena paid attention to Emma’s face at that moment they would have noticed the slight upward twitch of the sheriff’s mouth at the word “charming”.

__

Kara was beginning to get a little exhausted with everyone in this town’s obsession with her and Lena’s business. But she tried not to let it get to her head, at least not for the moment, not when the mayor was looking at her in that way. “We’re just, uh, on a roadtrip. You know, on a little getaway from the city.”

__

 “Oh. Well, we _love_ roadtrips around here. Isn’t that right, Emma?” She sent a little knowing smirk in Emma’s direction and the blonde flushed. She fixed her gaze back onto Kara, who was beginning to redden a little as well.

__

“Yeah, they’re… they’re fun, aren’t they?” Kara said with a nervous chuckle, pushing her glasses up closer to her face with her fingers. “We’ve seen some amazing places, and Storybrooke has been no different. You’ve got a really cute town and a beautiful family and a, a gorgeous office – ” she gestured to the open space around them, “ – I mean you have _got_ to give me your interior decorator’s number.”

__

She was rambling, as she often did when flustered. Familiar that she was with Kara’s mannerisms, Lena knew the signs, and she could see that their new companions were becoming privy to them as well.

__

“I designed this office myself, actually,” Mayor Mills said as she stood up from her chair and walked to the front of her desk. She was shorter than Kara had imagined her to be, but it didn’t make her seem any less intimidating. “So, do you two have any plans in mind for the day? I could recommend you some beautiful parts of the town if you are interested in sightseeing.”

__

“That – that sounds great but I think we should actually get back on the road. I mean, we can’t very well travel cross country in under two weeks if we stay too long in every place we visit.”

__

“Alright, well in that case it was lovely to meet you, Miss, ah –“

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“Danvers.”

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“Right. It was lovely to meet you, Miss Danvers. And you as well, Miss Luthor,” she nodded in Lena’s direction.

__

Lena uncrossed her arms to shake the woman’s hand. “It was a pleasure and honor to meet you, too, Madam Mayor.”

__

The mayor flashed her a dazzling grin. “Oh, don’t bother with the formalities. Just call me Regina.”

__

 

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                                                                  _________________________________________

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__

Regina asked Henry to escort the two young women out of the office so that she could speak with Sheriff Swan in private.

__

Standing in the otherwise empty hallway with the teenage boy felt a little awkward, so Lena tried to fill in the silence with conversation. “Your mothers seem badass, Henry.”

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He shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah, they’re pretty cool, I guess.”

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“So, you were adopted, right?” He nodded.

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“Hey, I was adopted too!” Kara exclaimed.

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“And so was I,” Lena added.

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Henry’s eyes widened as he regarded them both. “Really?” When they both assured him that they were serious, he said, “I’ve never met anyone else before who was adopted.”

__

The excitement in his voice struck both Kara’s and Lena’s hearts, for they both knew the feeling of being the lone adopted child, of wanting so badly to find someone else in their life with a family as unconventional as theirs. Something told them that Henry could relate all too well.

__

While Lena continued to converse with Henry, Kara had her eye on the office door. It was wrong to eavesdrop, but Kara’s rabid curiosity won over her moral compass long enough for her to tune into what was being discussed inside. From the sounds of it, the two women were engaged in a somewhat strange conversation.

__

“…that’s ridiculous, Emma. Even if they did possess the ability to take down the barrier themselves they couldn’t have done so from outside of the town’s limits.”

__

“Well then how do _you_ suppose they got through?”

__

“Perhaps our spell wore off or something. You and I should head out to the town line later and inspect it.”

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“Shouldn’t we do it as soon as possible? I mean, what if more people start to arrive?”

__

“Storybrooke isn’t exactly Boston, Emma. People may pop in from other realms from time to time but nobody from this world has even heard of our town. I doubt we’ll get any more visitors aside from those two. But you’re right, we should handle this sooner rather than later.”

__

“Okay, but we should get something to eat first. I know you didn’t eat anything today, Regina, and you must be starving…”

__

Kara heard the two older women walk towards the door and promptly stepped away so that they could open it, contorting her face so that it wasn't obvious that she had overheard their weird conversation.

__

The five of them walked out of Storybrooke Town Hall together. After bidding farewells they split up – Henry went on his bike to do whatever 14 year old boys did on Saturdays, Emma and Regina went to grab a late lunch and Kara and Lena returned to the Lexus, armed with the new road instructions they were given.

__

 

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                                                                  _________________________________________

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“Well, that was something,” Lena remarked once they were back on the open road.

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“Yeah, you can say that again. So,” Kara leaned back against her seat, “what did you think of Mayor Mills? I actually found her a little intimidating.”

__

“Intimidating? Her? Kara, you have the President of the United States on speed dial. You’re friends with our mayor back home.”

__

“Yeah, but Mayor Mills… there’s just something about her that’s different. She has this… aura of power… like, I would _not_ want to mess with her at all.”

__

Lena took a second to consider her words. “I did feel some of that as well. But she doesn’t scare me. I know her type, and I know that there are cracks in that pretty armor of hers.”

__

“So you think she’s pretty?” She blinked and looked pointedly at Lena with a look on her face that that was partially intrigued and partially – jealous?

__

“Kara, she’s gorgeous.”

__

Kara looked away. "I mean, I guess, if you're into the whole power brunette thing." She grappled for a subject change. “Anyways, I’m glad to be finally leaving this weird place,” she said as the clusters of houses and buildings on either side of the road became smaller and more sparse, making room for thicker trees. “So where are we off to next?”

__

“Hm… why don’t you let me surprise you?” Lena responded teasingly. “I’ll give you a clue, though: think upstate New York. And no, you can’t peek at the GPS.”

__

Kara was about to rattle off all the landmarks in New York that she had researched as possible destinations for their road trip when the car suddenly stopped.

__

It came to an abrupt standstill then jerked back violently as though it had hit a giant wall, making its driver and passenger almost leap forward in their seats. Had they neglected to wear their seatbelts they might have crashed through the car’s windshield. As it was, fortunately neither of them had gotten hurt, but the screams Lena emitted had Kara fearing the worst.

__

“Oh my god!” She yelled out, turning towards her friend and reaching forward with lightning speed once the car stopped skidding. “Are you okay?”

__

Lena stopped screaming. After taking a second to assess herself, finding that she was not hurt at all, she nodded tepidly at Kara, too absorbed in shock for words. The two peered over the dashboard to the street in front of them, finding absolutely nothing but the open road. To their right, a green sign reading LEAVING STORYBROOKE stood just off the road, but aside from that there was nothing else but trees all around.

__

“Did we crash into something?” Kara asked. Images of injured pedestrians and deer in front of headlights jumped into her mind, but there didn’t seem to be any people or animals on the road that they could have hit.

__

“No, there’s nothing there.”

__

The car was still running, inching towards that same point of impact it had just smashed against. Lena steered the car back onto the right side of the road. She had her feet off both the accelerator and brake, allowing the Lexus to move slowly forwards on auto until once again it felt as though the car had hit an invisible wall. This time, however, the impact lacked the momentum to send the Lexus off in the opposite direction and instead only resulted in a light bump.

__

“I don’t understand, there’s literally nothing there,” Lena said. “What is the car hitting against and why can’t we get past it?”

__

Not one to merely sit around and speculate, Kara got out of the car, walking with some trepidation to the front of the car. The car’s front didn’t seem to have sustained any damage – not a dent or scratch was visible on its shiny silver surface.

__

But the air, the air around the car’s front, was filled with that strange and tingly – almost electric - feeling that she hadn’t been able to let go of throughout their short time in Storybrooke. It was stronger here, though, more concentrated and harder to ignore. The faint buzz it emitted was almost deafening to her fine-tuned ears.

__

Kara remembered the moment earlier that morning when they had entered the town, that feeling of being sucked in and then pushed out. She looked around – yes, this probably could have been that same spot they were driving past at the time, right? – then tentatively reached out with her hand, palm faced in the same direction as the car’s front.

__

Her hand was met with a vibration so intense she quickly withdrew it as if it had burned her. Lena had stepped out of the car as well at that point, joining her side. “What is it?” She asked.

__

“It’s like this… invisible barrier,” Kara responded. She extended her arm out once more, feeling again that vibration. This time she kept her hand there, trying to push her hand further into the air. It wouldn’t budge. She closed her hand into a tight fist and tried to force a punch instead, to no avail. When that didn’t help, Kara summoned all of her super strength, slamming her entire body forward.

__

It didn’t work.

__

“Kara… look,” Lena said, pointing to the ground. Kara followed her gaze to the stretch of black road underneath them.  Inches from where they stood, a solid red painted line stretched across the road. 

__

Right along where the invisible wall stood.

__

“I’m starting to think my earlier theory about the force field had some validity to it,” Lena remarked.

__

Kara recalled the conversation she had overheard in the mayor’s office. What was it Sheriff Swan said about a barrier at the town line?

__

“Okay, stand back,” she said. When Lena complied, Kara willed her eyes to glow and heat up, mustering as much energy as she could, then zapped the invisible barrier in front of her. Only to have that energy bounce off the barrier and head straight back to her instead. Kara was thrown backwards, landing on her back a few feet away.

__

“I’m not done,” was her response when Lena told her to stop, that she might accidentally hurt herself for real. After taking a cursory look at her surroundings to make sure that they were free from prying eyes, she rose up from the ground, flying high enough that she could see for miles all around. Maybe the barrier stopped at a certain altitude, Kara reasoned. She was quickly proven wrong when, at about 700 feet high, she was still unable to pass on over to the other side of the line. She flew left and right for a mile in either direction, but the force field seemed to stretch laterally as well.

__

Kara descended and landed back on her feet in defeat. Her blue eyes met Lena’s green ones in quiet disbelief, the two of them unable to find the words to express their thoughts on the strange and frankly terrifying predicament they suddenly found themselves in.

__

It was inexplicable but somehow, as insane as it was to consider such an impossible truth, they were unable to leave.

__


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma and Regina begin their investigation on the town line and the two women who've crossed it, while Kara and Lena attempt to process their bizarre situation and figure out a course of action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the super long wait for this chapter; I originally planned for this chapter to be a lot longer but decided that it wasn't working out so I made some changes.  
> Anyways, I tried to keep the voices of each character as accurate and true to canon as possible, though I'm not sure how well I've succeeded on that with our Storybrooke ladies since I've never written them before.  
> And I apologize for mentions of the pirate in advance.

“Do spells have expiration dates?” Emma asked over lunch. At least, that was what Regina thought the blonde had asked. With a mouth filled with partially chewed roast beef and bread it was difficult to decipher her exact words.

Regina ignored the offending tableside manners and considered the question. “No, a spell lasts for as long as the one who casts it would like it to, or is able to maintain it.”

“Unless it’s broken by someone else.”

“Emma, if you’re still claiming that those girls somehow broke down our town barrier –“

“No, no, I’m not,” Emma put her hands up as if to accentuate her words, before clarifying. “I’m _saying_ that unless our spell somehow wore off on its own, _somebody_ managed to break it, or at least weaken it long enough for them to roll into Storybrooke.”

“Well, we won’t be able to figure out what happened until we inspect the town line ourselves. Now, are you done with that?” Regina gestured towards what was left of the monstrosity of a sandwich Emma had been devouring for the past ten minutes. Her own small tray of spicy tuna rolls lay half empty in front of her, an empty salad container to its side.

When Emma shook her head no, Regina let out a half chuckle. “Remind me why I invited you over for dinner tonight.”

Emma swallowed the food in her mouth and grinned. “Because you love me and cherish my company?” She got an eye roll for that, but the upturned corners of Regina’s mouth told her she wasn’t too far off from the truth.

Regina fiddled with a tuna roll for a second before popping it into her mouth. “Speaking of love and company,” she began slowly afterwards, “how did things go yesterday with Captain Smolder?”

The grin on Emma’s face dimmed. She was kind of hoping that Hook wouldn’t come up in conversation, given that she didn’t answer his morning texts and was generally avoiding him for the day. “It was okay,” she said, looking down at her plate.  “He wasn’t too thrilled about me turning down his plans for tonight, though. I told him that I wanted to spend some more time with Henry, that I hardly got to see the kid when I had him last weekend because he spent most of the time studying. He implied that I was just making excuses to see you.”

“And was he correct?” Regina began to clean up her side of the table, wadding up napkins and gathering utensils, giving off an air of indifference to what she imagined Emma’s answer would be.

“I mean, you invited me. I didn’t invite myself.”

Regina looked at her, inhaled deeply and then turned her attention back to the table. “Right.” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear, or what she was hoping to accomplish by asking Emma about her date with Hook. To be quite honest she didn’t care. Really, she didn’t. She also totally wasn’t silently reveling in the fact that Emma apparently didn’t have the best time. That would be terribly insensitive. Friends were supposed to be supportive of one another’s relationships with their boyfriends, right? No matter what they thought of them.

Or what they felt for their friends, for that matter.

Emma offered to pay for their food afterwards. “It’s only fair, since you’re having me over for dinner later,” she had insisted, and unlike previous lunches Regina didn’t give up much of a fight. She could not recall how long it had been since the two of them had stopped paying for meals separately whenever they went out to eat together. It was long enough, though, that waitresses no longer smirked or smiled knowingly when told that either Regina or Emma were going to foot the bill for the both of them.

Emma drove them to the town line in her yellow bug, pulling the car over next to the green sign that read LEAVING STORYBROOKE. “Those girls must be long gone now,” she remarked as they slammed the car’s doors in unison and walked closer to the barrier they had erected a while back. Unlike spells that had previously cursed the town line by trapping its residents within its borders, this spell allowed the people of Storybrooke to come and go as they pleased but kept outsiders out. Anyone from the outside world who even managed to stray far enough to come near the town was suddenly compelled to turn around when they fell underneath the barrier’s influence.

Evidently, the barrier was not doing such a great job as of late.

Regina approached the red line painted across the road, feeling the pulsating magic of the invisible wall more intensely the closer she got to it. She stretched her right hand out in front of her, releasing a small purple beam of her own magic. The beam got as far as the line before appearing to get sucked into the air, causing a transparent ripple in front of her.

“It’s still up,” she declared. She looked left and right, peering through the sides of the road and through the thickness of the trees. After a few more rounds of throwing magic against the wall, Emma combining her own magic with Regina’s, the two concluded that the wall was intact.

“Okay, so now let’s try taking it down,” Emma said. Using magic together was a secret thrill of Emma’s – they were so much more powerful as a team than she was on her own that just standing next to Regina as she was now, only a shoulder width apart, as they prepared to take down their own spell gave Emma an exhilarating rush. It was the magic that elicited such a response in her, she told herself. Just the magic.

They raised their arms up in tandem, eyes closed in identical expressions of deep concentration, and pushed with their minds.

They didn’t have to open their eyes again to be able to tell that nothing happened. The barrier stayed up. ”Try again?” Emma suggested, and they raised their arms up once more, though this time they both kept their eyes open.

When the second attempt turned into the third and fourth without any success, Regina stepped back, completely bewildered, unable to meet Emma’s gaze. Their combined magic had never failed them before, had never faltered even at the face of the most impossible task. But now here they were, unable to undo their own simple spell.

After a moment’s thought, Regina spoke again. “Let me just try on my own,” as if the particular flavor of their intertwined magic was the problem here (and Regina knew deep down that wasn’t the case) and she stepped forward again to try to dissolve the wall.

The barrier looked as airtight as always, devoid of any signs of tampering or compromised strength. _Then how did those two young women get through?_ Regina wondered silently, and somewhat fearfully. The idea of two nobodies figuring a way through the safe bubble of her town, a bubble that now she could not even take down, deeply unnerved her.

She didn’t voice any of her concerns, but Emma could see it in her eyes, see the confusion and worry swimming in the brown depths.

“Do you think those women might still be in town?” Regina asked after a period of silence.

“Either that or they managed to take the wall down themselves to leave, like they did when they first came here, and then put it back up.”

“ _Emma_.” She didn’t dare allow credence to Emma’s theory, plausible as it was now starting to seem, for the very thought of it was terrifying to entertain.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out, huh?” Emma motioned toward her car. “Let’s see if they’re still hanging around Storybrooke.”

They drove back to town in silence.

 

                                                                ____________________________

 

“Maybe if we drive long enough in one direction we can find another exit from the town,” Kara suggested, leaning over her seat to look at the GPS mounted on the dashboard.

Lena was currently fiddling with the GPS, frowning. “This is weird, I can’t really seem to find any other roads out of Storybrooke. Do they really just have the one we’re on?”

“Well, this _is_ a coastal town. Maybe we can escape on a boat or something.”

A chuckle emanated from the brunette. “Well if it does come down to that, _I’ll_ drive the boat.”

They had already driven back from the town line and were currently parked on Main Street, the Lexus’ tinted windows completely rolled up for their own privacy as they figured out their next move. Kara had relayed the conversation she had overheard in the mayor’s office to Lena, who found it as baffling as Kara did.

 

_“A spell barrier?” She had remarked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”_

_“Could that be some kind of force field, like you said earlier?”_

_  
“I don’t know,” Lena had mused. “But we should to back and ask. If Mayor Mills and the sheriff know how to take that thing down, whatever it is, perhaps they will help us.”_

_Kara fidgeted slightly in her seat. “I don’t want them to know that I overheard them. Besides, they would have told us about the force field thingy or helped us get past it when they first gave us directions out of town. It’s like they don’t want us to know it’s there.”_

_“Then what do you suppose we do?”_

_“Maybe stay for a little while? Ask around, find out a little more about this town? In the meantime I can call Alex.”_

Kara and Lena got out of the car and were contemplating on whether to take a look in the nearby stores when two figures rounded the corner and froze in front of them.

“Hello again,” Regina greeted the two of them with an air of false surprise, bearing a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. Next to her, Emma’s eyes had widened considerably. Clearly neither were expecting to see them again.

“Hi,” Kara said to the two other women almost shyly.

“We figured you’d be long gone by now,” Emma burst out and Regina turned to throw her a glare at her lack of tact.

Kara shifted her glasses, which didn’t actually need adjusting, atop her nose. “Yeah, uh, Lena and I decided that we’d like to stay here for a while after all. Isn’t that right, Lena?”

“Yes,” Lena nodded convincingly. “We’ve chosen to… to extend our trip. I mean, our home can live without us for a day or two more while we stay in this gorgeous town.”

“Oh.” Regina’s smile grew more stilted still but her composure did not waver. “That’s… great. Do you have a place to stay?”

“That depends,” Lena answered. “Are there any good hotels nearby?”

“Not really, but Granny’s diner is also a bed and breakfast.  I’m sure there are some rooms there available that you can stay in,” Emma suggested, pointing vaguely in the general direction of the diner.

Lena and Kara thanked her for her tip, said bye to her and Regina and quickly crossed the street, making their way back towards Granny’s.

___________________________

 

Once they were out of earshot, Emma turned to Regina. “They’re lying.” She didn’t need her superpower to know that. Those girls were terrible liars.

“Yes, I gathered as much myself.”

They were walking now, in the same general direction as Kara and Lena had just taken off, though remaining on the same side of the street. “But what reason would they have to lie about why they’re staying?”

“Perhaps they tried to leave town, couldn’t cross the town line, and now don’t want to admit it to us for fear that they’d be seen as crazy.”

Emma pondered that for a second. “Or maybe they _can_ cross, and they have some sort of secret agenda here.”

Regina looked at her, amused by the blonde’s paranoia. “I think you’ve spent a little too much time in Storybrooke if you think those girls have some sort of ulterior motive for being here.”

“Well, when you’re forced to deal with a new fairytale villain every week, every lying stranger looks suspicious to you.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Regina said in a mockingly sympathetic voice.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“So. Do you think it wise to let them stay at Granny’s? Granny’s got a mouth on her, you know that, and so do her customers, especially when sufficiently intoxicated.”

“Shit, I didn’t think of that.” Emma looked over at the two girls who were now nearly out of sight. “You think maybe they should stay with one of us instead?”

Regina looked as if she might agree to that, but then shook her head. “No, that might be a bit too much. We’d come across as overbearing. Besides, you and I still need to figure out what’s going on with the town line.” She followed Emma’s gaze over across the street to Granny’s, which Kara and Lena had just disappeared into. “But maybe we can invite those girls to dinner tonight.”

 

_________________________

 

The diner was not as packed as it was at noon. Granny led Kara and Lena to the inn, whose front entrance was actually around the corner but was also accessible through the diner’s back door.

“I’m afraid we only have one room available for today,” Granny told them apologetically. “That room would have been taken as well had Mr. Jenkins not checked out a day early to return to that poor wife of his. Though, I am sure that such sleeping arrangements will not be a problem for you ladies,” she added with a wink.

Kara recalled earlier that day when the elderly woman called them girlfriends. Her meaning of the word might have been a little ambiguous then, but it was clear now that she thought Kara and Lena were a couple. “Uh, you know, we’re not actually dating,” Kara said. “Lena and are I good friends, that’s all.”

“Oh,” said Granny, not entirely convinced. “Well, that would be perfectly alright if you two were in a relationship. My granddaughter has a girlfriend and they are confirmed True Loves, you know.” She said this last part proudly, like having a gay grandchild with a true love was the greatest accomplishment one could aspire to.

“That’s… wonderful,” Lena beamed, her heart fluttering at the idea of her and Kara being mistaken for a couple. It wasn't the first time that it had happened, and if she were to be completely honest with herself, Lena was hoping that it wouldn't be the last. 

Kara put her hands together. “The single room’s fine, we’ll take it.” After all, it also wasn’t the first time on their trip that Kara and Lena shared a room together.

The first was in New Orleans, when the Four Seasons that Lena and Kara wanted to check into was almost completely booked. Lena suggested they stay at the Ritz down the street instead, bemoaning their earlier decision not to book any hotels in advance (Kara had claimed it was more like a true road trip this way).

_“No, it’s okay, we can take the single suite,” Kara had whispered to her as they stood in front of the concierge desk. “I mean, if you’re cool with sharing a room.”_

_“Yeah, that’s totally fine with me. It’s just… um, it’s just got the one bed,” Lena whispered back. “Are you okay with that?”_

_“Of course I am! It’ll be so fun, Lena, just like a sleepover!”_

_“Never really had one of those, so I wouldn’t know.”_

_Kara had linked her arm – the one that wasn’t holding all four of their suitcases - around Lena’s. “Well, you won’t be able to say that after tonight.” Only Kara could utter something like that and not have it sound dirty. In fact, her face was so earnest and filled with such pure excitement that Lena didn’t have the heart to deny her anything._

_Plus, the thought of having a sleepover with Kara brought butterflies to Lena’s stomach._

_So, that was how Lena found herself curled up alongside her best friend in the king sized bed of their suite later that night. The two spent hours laying there, talking about the highlights of their day and the interesting people they had met._

_They had fallen asleep with their faces inches apart from one another despite the bed’s vast size. When Lena woke, it was with Kara’s toned arm slung around her waist, Kara having subconsciously closed the distance between them in the night. Needless to say Lena had risen out of bed that morning with some reluctance. If this was what sleepovers were like, she thought, then she had sorely missed out on a lot in her life._

The room at Granny’s inn was small but nicely decorated, its floral wallpaper giving it an old-fashioned homey feel that resembled nothing like any place Lena had ever stayed at. She liked it immediately. It took only one trip for Kara to haul some of their luggage from the car to the room, and in no time they were settled. Kara flopped onto the full-sized bed, staring at the off-white ceiling in thought as Lena paced the room with her phone in her hand.

“I can try to have one of my private jets flown over,” Lena muttered to herself. “Okay, yes,” she added loudly when Kara, who had obviously overheard, looked as though she was about to interject, “I know you’re stronger than a jet engine and that if you can’t get through a force field, nothing can. I’m just thinking aloud.” She walked over the window, pushing the curtain aside to let in light. “If I hadn’t had my transmatter portal completely destroyed, maybe I could have gotten my engineers at L-Corp to start it up again and have us transported out of here.”

Kara didn’t say anything to that, because the private jet suggestion had reminded her of her earlier idea. “ _Alex_. She and the DEO can figure out a way to help us.”

“Can they?” Lena was a bit skeptical, both of the DEO itself and its capabilities.

“Probably. I mean, I really don’t want to bother them until we’re absolutely certain we don’t have any other options, but they’re our backup plan for now.”

“And what’s our real plan?”

Sigh. “No idea.”

 

After a half hour of them brainstorming more ideas, Lena answered a knock at their door. It was Henry Mills, inviting them to dinner with him and his mothers at 108 Mifflin Street.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lena have dinner at the Mills residence.

Emma spent much of the rest of her day on patrol, driving around town as though watching for mischievous activity when really she was on the lookout for more unfamiliar faces. She had called her parents, notifying them of the two visitors in town and warning them against prolonged interaction with the pair if they met, fearing that they’ll accidentally say too much.

“What makes you think I’ll spill something?” Mary Margaret had asked.

The moment of silence that Emma provided over the phone was enough of a response for her.

“Hey, I did fine around Henry when you guys came back from New York and he didn’t have his memories!”

“You also told him we were former cellmates, Mom.”

“Sue me for wanting to look badass in front of my grandson… even if he didn’t know who I was at the time.”

“Okay, well, no more crazy backstories this time. If you do run into those women, you and Dad and I are all just friends, okay?”

 

Regina was busy at home preparing dinner, having kicked Zelena out of the house for the evening (who was currently out with Belle and their babies). She refused to tell Emma what it was she was cooking and Henry, the traitor, wouldn’t spill anything either. So Emma spent the sliver of free time she had after work studying her reflection in the mirror at home, deciding that her split ends did, in fact, need to go. After a few erroneous magical attempts she successfully managed to trim two inches of her hair off, wondering how it was that Regina managed to keep her hair so perfectly maintained at all times.

“Remind me again why you’re having them over tonight?” Emma asked when she arrived at the Mills’ residence at seven.  The dress Regina had on made Emma feel somewhat underdressed in her gray sweater and she tugged on its hem to make it appear a little longer. She looked over at Regina once more just to compare their outfits again - she was most definitely _not_ checking the brunette out as she hung her coat up and followed her to the kitchen to help with dinner.

“Because the more time they spend with us, the less time they spend around random dimwits in town who would accidentally say something they’re not supposed to or use magic in front of them.”

“The magic thing shouldn’t be too much of a problem. You and I are the only ones here who have magic aside from Rumple. And the fairies, too, I guess, but they rarely leave the convent.”

  
“And I thank the universe for that every day, Emma.” Regina pulled a covered dish out of the oven, chicken from the wonderful aroma wafting from the inside. “I was also hoping that spending time with those women would abate your fears about them.”

 “They’re not _fears_ , just reasonable suspicions.”

The right side of Regina’s lip quirked up in a way that betrayed her disbelief. “Reasonable suspicions. Right. About a cutesy blonde girl in glasses and her stuck-up friend. Well, I can see why you might find the bespectacled one cause for concern. She reminds me of you quite a bit when you and I first met.”

Emma, who was in the middle of opening a cabinet door to retrieve plates, froze. “What? _Me_?”

“You were so nervous when Henry brought you to my doorstep that night, so flustered.”

“I was not,” Emma protested, feeling her cheeks burn, grateful that the heat of the kitchen could be used as an excuse for the redness now coloring her face.

“You were practically trembling on my porch.”

“Hey, I wasn’t _trembling_.” She grabbed the plates they needed and set them down firmly upon the counter as if to prove her point. “I was meeting my son’s mother for the first time and I wanted to make a good impression.”

Regina laughed. “And I hated you.”

This wasn’t news to Emma by a long shot, of course, but she felt the lurch in her stomach all the same, the casualty with which Regina spoke of her former loathing striking a tender chord inside her. “And now…?” She said, in what she hoped was a casual tone, turning to face Regina as the latter was busy arranging dishes.

She wanted to hate herself for the sudden need to ask, but it had been a while since they’ve verbalized the nature of their friendship, the bond between them being one that transcended words to express what they now meant to each other.

Regina stopped mid-chuckle when her eyes met Emma’s. “Well, I certainly don’t hate you now.” She was smiling but her voice had gone surprisingly soft as she said this, her face morphing in an expression Emma couldn’t decipher. Emma wasn’t sure what answer she had been expecting, but that wasn’t quite it, and she turned her attention back to the plates and silverware.

The silence in the kitchen was broken by the faraway sound of the front door opening and shutting. It was Henry, back from wherever he had spent his day after passing his mothers’ invitation to their guests. He trod into the kitchen to wash up for dinner and both Regina and Emma welcomed the distraction from whatever had clouded the air between them.

 

___________________________

 

Kara studied her half-up, half-down hairdo in the long mirror on the wall. After going through four outfit changes in the span of ten seconds, she ended up choosing a sleeveless blue dress that brought out the vibrant blues of her eyes. Lena seemed to have a similar idea, opting for a forest green dress that Kara loved on her.

“Hey, Lena, how do you think the mayor and sheriff will react if I were to fly us over there?”

“Unless you’re planning on giving them and everyone else who sees us a heart attack, you better not be serious,” Lena chuckled while slipping a necklace around her slim neck. Kara helped her clasp it from the back, and she tried not to shudder at the gentle touch of the Kryptonian’s cool fingers against her bare skin.

“I’m kidding. It might be easier to find the mayor’s house from the air, though.”

As if they would have had any difficulty finding the house through any other means. The instructions Henry gave them were really thorough, from the crooked traffic light by the Storybrooke Coffee Co. at Travis Ave to the wide turn onto Mifflin Street. “It’s a big white house surrounded by trees,” Henry had helpfully explained, “You can’t miss it.”

They pulled up at the mayor’s residence at precisely 7:29. As Lena parked the Lexus, Kara admired the beautiful foliage surrounding the white mansion, though Lena barely spared a single glance, citing the house’s resemblance to the Luthor Manor she grew up in.

Mayor Mills opened the door almost immediately after Lena rang the doorbell, greeting them with a megawatt smile and a slight tilt of her head. Kara had to consciously refrain from gaping at the mayor’s tight maroon dress, so different from the corporate pantsuit that she had on earlier that day. She looked even hotter than she did then, and Kara didn’t know how that was remotely possible.

Emma, who stood behind her, took Lena’s small jacket and followed the two young women that Regina led through the foyer and living room to the dining room. Having grown up in a mansion herself, Lena was blind to the expensive and tasteful décor of the mayor’s home that greeted them at every turn. Kara, who had no such wealthy upbringing on Earth, looked all around at awe. “You have a beautiful home here, Madam Mayor,” she gushed to the woman leading them, though she made fleeting eye contact with Emma behind her as well when she said this.

They were seated by their two hosts and soon joined at the table by Henry, who had evidently been prompted by his parents to change into a clean button down shirt.

“I hope you two don’t mind a little spice,” Regina warned them, placing two dishes down at the center of the large dining table. “It is a specialty of mine, though I did try to tone down on the heat level just in case.”

“That’s what she always says before serving people food that sets their mouths on fire,” Emma piped up as she appeared from the kitchen, a stack of plates in one hand and utensils in the other.

“You’re the only one who’s ever complained, dear,” the mayor shot back affectionately.

Kara and Lena listened to their playful banter with fascination.

Dinner started off with several platters of various _tapas_ and salads. Kara, realizing then just how ravenous she was, struggled to hold back from gorging on the entire platter of cheesy tomato garlic bread slices, or the mushroom stuffed meatballs. On her left, Lena nibbled neatly on some salad and some of the spicy potatoes. Regina allowed the two roadtrippers a few minutes to settle comfortably into the meal before launching into interrogation mode.

“So, Miss Luthor,” Regina fixed her gaze on the younger brunette, her perfectly tweezed eyebrows quirking into an expression of intrigue, “You never did elaborate on what it was that you did for a living.”

Momentarily shaken by the mayor’s intense eyes but relieved at the relatively simple question, Lena talked about her position as CEO of the two largest companies back home.

“L-Corp, huh? I have heard of that name before in the news,” Regina remarked.

Lena, bracing for the inevitably unpleasant conversation that was to come, paused between bites. “So, I suppose then that you’ve heard of my brother, Lex Luthor?”

Regina’s brows knit together in confusion. “Your brother? No, only of the company’s achievements since its recent change in ownership and branding in the National City branch. I’m assuming that change in ownership was yourself?”

Pleasantly surprised by the mayor’s answer and delighted at the idea of not having to defend herself against a stranger for once because of her last name, Lena smiled proudly. “It is. I took over the family business almost two years ago.”

Regina then fixed her disarming attention on Kara and she talked about her work as a reporter, her superhero alter ego obviously kept a secret.

Talks of careers and personal lives went on throughout the main serving of dinner and up to dessert, which was apple pie, and soon enough Kara and Lena even shared some of the highlights of their road trip. Dulled by the tedious adult conversation, Henry asked to excuse himself, mumbling something about a history paper due that Monday. His mothers allowed him the rare privilege of prematurely leaving the table, leaving the four adults to converse among themselves.

 “So,” Kara began once every other avenue of small talk was crossed, wiping her mouth with her napkin as she addressed the two hosts with a curious eyebrow raise, “how long have you two been together?”

Regina blinked as she regarded her question. “Together?” she repeated, as though she had perhaps misheard.

“Yeah, uh, I mean, Henry’s a teenager so I imagine you guys have been together for a really long time, though you don’t look anywhere near old enough to have been married that long.”

The hand that the mayor held her fork with froze midway between her plate and her mouth. Emma, who was in the middle of gulping down her glass of water to soothe her hot mouth, sputtered into a coughing fit of sorts. Their two guests watched in confusion, with Lena wondering what was going on and Kara fearing that she had said something disrespectful, or even taboo.

It was Regina who recovered first - after opening and closing her mouth a few times and checking to make sure Emma could breathe again she finally found the words to speak. “You thought Emma and I were… _married_?”

Kara suddenly felt like a deer caught in headlights, like there were more than just two pairs of incredulous eyes gaping at her for the wrong assumption she had made. “Um, you mean you’re not?” She asked weakly.

“No, no, we aren’t… we’re not in a relationship, Miss Danvers,” Regina said (somewhat mournfully, in Lena’s opinion). She slapped a disingenuous smile onto her face and added, “We’re friends.”

“ _Best_ friends.” Emma corrected her. “And I have a boyfriend.”

The left side of Regina’s mouth twitched when Emma said “boyfriend”. Clearly this boyfriend, whoever he was, wasn’t one of her favorite people in the planet.

“Oh!” Exclaimed a mortified Kara. “Oh, I am so, _so_ sorry, I thought…” she shifted her gaze back and forth between Regina and Emma, then at the doorway of the dining room through which Henry had exited just a few minutes ago. “But, your son… you guys have a child together…”

Emma, who suddenly seemed to discover a newfound interest in the food on her plate, took a deep breath, as though pondering her response. “I, uh, I had Henry at a young age and gave him up when he was born. Regina adopted him and raised him on her own, until he went out and found me a few years ago.” She looked back up and grinned at Kara. “I did tell you it was a long story.”

Kara nodded as though she understood. It didn’t really seem like a long story, but she suspected that there was more to it than the sheriff was letting on. “That sounds lovely,” she said softly. “A birth mother and adoptive mother, meeting one another and becoming friends, raising their son together.” There was a wistfulness in her tone that did not escape Emma’s notice, and the latter wondered how much of her own story the young woman was concealing.

“Well, it took quite a bit for us to get to that point,” Regina chimed in. “You should have seen us when we first met. We fought with one another for the longest time, like we were meant to be sworn enemies or something.” She turned and smirked at Emma after saying the last part and Emma shared in return a smile so affectionate that their guests felt like they were intruding upon a private moment.

“Meant to be sworn enemies?” Lena looked over fondly at Kara. “We can definitely relate to that.” She turned back to their hosts. “Though I can imagine you guys being mistaken for a couple quite often.”

“This is a first for us, actually,” Emma said, now with a mouth filled with mashed up potatoes. “The entire town knows our story. Being public officials and all, everyone is always up in our business whether we like it or not.”

“ _Emma_ ,” Mayor Mills chided gently, and Kara wondered how two _friends_ could so closely resemble an married couple without realizing it.

“Is everyone in this town so… close?” She asked.

“Not particularly,” was Emma’s answer. “But sometimes we're like one large, very dysfunctional family. It’s a pretty inevitable dynamic when the only people you know are one another.”

Now they were getting somewhere. Kara, prodding gently, inquired further. “Have you ever lived anywhere else?”

“Sure.” Emma leaned back. “I’ve been all across the country. I’ve lived in Boston and New York City. But the people in this town? Most have come from far off places long ago, but once they moved here they pretty much put down roots and stayed.”

And Kara, in all her glorious subtlety, blurted out, “Can they leave, though, if they want to?”

She didn’t have to see the look passed between Emma and Regina to know that she had dropped the ball completely. “Of course they can,” Regina said slowly but smugly, as though the question proved a suspicion of hers, "Why wouldn't they be able to?" And in that moment Kara wondered whether she _knew_ , wondered whether she was aware of the fact that Kara and Lena weren’t staying in Storybrooke of their own will.

 

_______________________________

 

The rest of the meal flowed smoothly, such that Kara and Lena were inclined to accept Regina’s offer of staying longer for drinks and more chats. However, it was getting late and Kara and Lena weren’t any closer to figuring out the answer to their current predicament and it didn’t seem as though spending more time at the Mills residence would change that tonight.

So they said their farewells soon after dessert, each of them kissing Regina and Emma on the cheeks (and there was blushing all around during this moment) and being walked to the door. The two hostesses stood side by side in the front doorway as they watched their guests walk to their car and drive off into the night.  

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Emma said finally after the Lexus disappeared from sight and she and Regina walked back inside.

“No, it wasn’t bad at all.” They both walked into the kitchen where Regina poured them both a glass of wine. “They’re pretty sweet, actually. And harmless.”

“How did you know so much about Miss Luthor and her company?”

“Google, Emma. I took a moment’s break from making dinner to look her up this afternoon.”

Emma raised her eyebrows, realizing that this was something she should have thought of herself. Of course, a high profile woman like Lena Luthor would be easily traceable online.

“And I found some interesting things in my research. You remember when she brought up a brother, expecting me to have heard of him? Well, it turns out her brother is currently serving multiple life sentences in prison.”

“Really?” Emma’s eyes widened considerably, her mouth hanging slightly open. She settled on one of the stools at the kitchen island.

“He was a domestic terrorist of sorts back in his home city.”

This fit perfectly with Emma’s suspicions about the two women and Regina knew it. “And you called her _harmless_ , Regina.”

“Well, she herself is a philanthropist of sorts, I’ve read. And I mean, look at the way she and her girlfriend interact with one another. She isn’t exactly villain material.”

“… girlfriend?” Last Emma remembered, Kara and Lena referred to themselves as friends, and she reminded Regina of this.

“Oh c’mon, Emma. They have to be dating. The only reason Miss Danvers assumed _we_ were romantically involved is because they themselves are.”

“I… I guess.” She looked up earnestly at Regina, searching for a truth, any truth, in those brown eyes that contradicted the brunettes’ words. Because surely that couldn’t be the _only_ reason their guests had seen something nonplatonic between them. Emma replayed every interaction with those two women in her head, mentally searching for an instance of prolonged physical contact with Regina, for an out of place smirk or lovestruck gaze. Was it possible that they saw something she and Regina and everyone else who knew them didn’t?

But Regina had already moved on to another subject. She cocked her head at Emma, squinting. “Did you do something with your hair, Emma?” She reached out and gently ran her fingers through the ends of Emma’s blonde locks. “It looks a bit shorter.”

“Yeah,” Emma breathed, a little touched that she noticed. “I trimmed it this afternoon.”

“I noticed it earlier but didn’t have the chance to say anything. It looks good on you.” Regina regarded her for another moment and then added, smiling, “I’m glad you brought the curls back. I missed them.”

Well shit, if she knew Regina preferred her hair curly she would have never gone straight in the first place.

Regina’s face suddenly looked contrite, apologetic. “I’m sorry, Emma, I invited you here tonight as a guest and had you play hostess with me instead.”

“It’s totally fine, I had a good time. They weren’t bad company at all,” Emma said, and exhales deeply. Because that one awkward moment aside, it was incredible how simple, how natural, it felt to play hostess along with Regina.

She wondered whether things would feel this way when she and Hook begin to have guests over at their house. The thought gave Emma unpleasant pause. They hadn’t had anybody over aside from her parents since he had moved in with her, and if Emma were completely honest with herself, she wasn’t sure whether they were entirely ready for something so couple-y, so _domestic_. Or maybe it was just her that wasn’t ready for that next development in their relationship. Emma wondered whether she’ll ever be.

“I had a good time too,” Regina agreed softly, and Emma had the feeling she wasn’t talking about their guests at all.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't make it clear as to when the story takes place, though I have added hints here and there, but this fic takes place post-S6 finale for OUAT and sometime after S3 for Supergirl. Emma and Hook are not married, however, but they are in a relationship.  
> I also apologize in advance for the CS in this chapter. It was hard to write and tbh I spent a lot of time wondering whether it was even necessary. But don't worry, it's pretty brief. 
> 
> This is kind of a filler chapter and so it may be a bit dull, but I promise things will pick up pretty soon!

“I can’t believe I assumed that they were married!” Kara exclaimed once they were in the car. They were driving back to Granny’s, the sun having long made its descent into the horizon behind them. “ _Rao_ , I must have looked like an idiot.”

“It was an honest mistake, Kara. They got over it. And frankly, I’m surprised as well that they’re not.”

“Right?” Kara threw up her hands. “Isn’t that wild? That they’re not even _dating_? The sheriff has a _boyfriend_. I would not have even guessed that she was straight.”

It was fortunate that they found themselves situated at a red light at that moment, so that Lena could turn to her friend to say, “You seem oddly upset by all this.”

“Well yeah, I was so ready to hype them up to Alex the next time I talk to her.”

“… Do you tell your sister about every gay couple you meet, Kara?”

‘Only the really cute ones. And if they’ve got kids and one happens to be a freaking _mayor_ it’s a plus.”

                                      

Kara all but collapsed on their shared bed at Granny’s inn while Lena made a few business calls out in the hallway. She texted a mild SOS of sorts to Alex, telling her that she and Lena were stranded in Maine and would probably need to be picked up. She tried to make her message as un-alarming as possible so as not to worry her sister, which evidently didn’t work because Alex called her immediately.

“What do you mean by ‘stranded’?” Alex demanded when Kara picked up, forgoing any greeting.

“Um, so we’re in this little coastal town and there seems to be, like, a force field surrounding it that we can’t pass through to leave. I can’t penetrate it even with my powers, Alex.”

“How did you enter the town in the first place?”

“Uh, by driving….”

“And you can’t drive back out?”

“No, we tried that.”

Alex fell silent, presumably to think of something, and it was then Kara noted the background noise on her sister’s end, a commotion of some sort surrounding her. “Is everything alright back home?” Kara asked tentatively.

“We’re kind of in the middle of a… a situation here.”

Kara’s brows immediately furrowed in concern. “What sort of situation?”

“The alien sort. A small invasion of Coluans - Brainy’s people - though they are not nearly as friendly as he is.”

“Oh, _Rao_ … how are you guys handling it? I knew I shouldn’t have stayed away for so long!”

“It’s okay, Kara, we’ll be fine, We’ve got Brainy on our side; he’s a 12th level intellect and most Coluans are only 8th level, remember? In fact, he’s been cracking jokes about their so-called ‘inferior’ intelligence the entire time.”

Despite the potentially dire circumstances on both sides of the phone line, Kara couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Brainy’s really something, huh? Well, in that case, forget I called, Alex. Lena and I are both fine and not in any immediate danger. We’ll figure out how to get us out of here ourselves soon enough.”

“No, no, as soon as we are finished here I’m sending a chopper over to you guys, okay? Just, hang tight for the time being and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” They said their farewells and the line went dead. Kara regretted the phone call almost instantly. When going on the road trip she had worried that the DEO might not be capable of holding the fort down in National City without her assistance. But here she was now, calling for their help from across the country and pulling them away from their duties.

Lena had come back into the room, her own phone calls taken care of, and the two of them turned in for the night, getting undressed with their backs to one another. They approached the single bed cautiously, eyeing its small size relative to the king size bed they had shared back in New Orleans. It was comfy, though, and cozy. Kara and Lena fell asleep, exhausted after the incredibly long day they shouldered, facing one another with their noses just inches apart and their hands lying still in the small space between them.

 

___________________________

 

Emma was up and out of bed the next morning almost immediately after waking up.

Taking pains to not wake up the snoring man in bed next to her, she tiptoed out of their shared bedroom and hopped into the shower. Minutes later, she was in the kitchen cracking eggs into a bowl and placing slices of whole wheat bread into the toaster when Hook came thundering down the stairs.

“Morning, love,” he murmured into her ear as he snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “How’s my beautiful fiancée on this day?”

Emma tensed before turning around to duck a kiss, making it land in her hair instead of on her lips. There was that _word_. Fiancée. After two proposals, a breakup, a reunion and a postponed wedding, she had still yet to grow accustomed to it, despite Killian’s increasing fondness for its usage. 

To be honest she wasn’t even sure that they were engaged. They pushed the wedding back -  indefinitely, it seems – when Storybrooke was under the looming threat of the Black Fairy, and never really got around to planning it even when the threat had subsided and the Black Fairy was defeated. There wasn’t really any point in the formality of vows and a ceremony, Emma argued. What mattered was that they were together and devoted to one another.

Besides, “fiancée” was just one degree of finality below “wife” and _that_ word made Emma even more uneasy.

“I didn’t hear you come in last night,” he said, arms still wrapped around her.

Of course he hadn’t. Emma had made sure of that when she deliberately snuck in the night before, knowing that if he knew the late hour at which she returned home he’d ask questions she didn’t feel like answering. She also knew that he stayed up in bed to wait for her, expectantly, as he did every night, and she wasn’t prepared for _that_ either.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” she replied, pulling away to resume cooking.

Hook looked her over for a second. “Her Royal Highness kept you up late, huh?” The question was innocent enough but the suggestion in his tone gave Emma pause.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I missed you, Emma.” His hand and hook were on her once more, this time around her shoulders.

“Regina and I just lost track of time while talking.”

“Talking about _what_ , exactly?”

Emma let out an almost audibly imperceptible sigh. Why was he giving her the third degree? He couldn’t possibly feel _this_ threatened by Regina. “Those visitors from out of town that I told you about, the ones we had over for dinner.”

“Hmm.” A pause. “I was thinking about having my mates round for dinner sometime soon. What do you think, Swan?”

Emma forced down a grimace. “That sounds lovely,” she managed. She wasn’t overtly fond of Hook’s crewmates, if she were to be perfectly honest with herself. But they were like family to him, and she loved _him_ , right? Even if she avoided him sometimes.

“Wonderful. I’ll let them know and we’ll pick out a day to invite them.” He then changed the subject, peering over the stove. “So what’s for breakfast?”

Seizing the opportunity she was just given, Emma pushed him off lightly. “Nothing until you shower, Killian,” she answered, pointing a finger out of the kitchen. Thankfully, he obliged. Emma watched him leave and silently wondered what was going on in the Mills household at the moment. She could imagine Regina and Zelena bickering over something Zelena had done or didn’t do, with Henry making faces at his baby cousin Robin across the breakfast table as he eats his cereal, getting her to laugh. 

A part of her imagined herself there with them. Another part scolded herself for it. She was living out her happy ending here, wasn’t she? Living with Killian, cooking breakfast for him and waiting for him to get ready for the day so they could eat together. Ignoring his texts, purposely coming home late at night to avoid sleeping with him, feeling that unsettling twist in her stomach whenever he spoke of a future together, forever. They were all just defense mechanisms, she told herself. Old habits and instincts of a past that protected her against getting too attached, too committed to another person lest they abandon her as the people in her life were prone to do. After all, it wouldn’t hurt as much if _she_ was the one to pull away for once, right? But Killian was supposed to be different. He wasn’t going anywhere, he had promised that, and she had made that same promise to him too, right?

Feeling guilty over her thoughts, Emma resolved to ask Hook if he wanted to go for a walk after breakfast.  

_______________________

 

Lena woke up that morning in midair.

It took a moment for her to notice, which was understandable considering she also happened to be on top of Kara. Kara being the reason they were both hovering two feet above their bed. The Kryptonian had her strong arms wrapped around Lena, with Lena’s head resting on her chest.

Blushing furiously, Lena gently freed herself from her friend’s grip and landed on the bed with a soft thud, then pulled her floating friend onto the bed with her. Still soundly asleep, Kara reached out blindly with her arm, sensing the loss of contact, and wrapped it around Lena once again. Lena’s face reddened even more as she freed herself again, causing Kara to stir.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Kara asked sleepily, gazing at her with just one eye open.

“No, but sorry for waking you up.” Now that they were both awake, it seemed pointless to go back to sleep. After getting dressed, the two trudged downstairs and next door to Granny’s for a big breakfast and a discussion for their plans for the day.

 

It was a gorgeous May morning, the air rich with the salty smell of the sea, and Kara honestly could not complain about the extra day of respite from National City’s hot, dry weather. If they had to stay a little longer, well, there were worse places in the galaxy to be stuck in.

Evidently, all of Storybrooke had the same idea as they did. People filled the sidewalks they walked on, some friendly looking, others averting their gazes when Kara and Lena glanced over at them.

Lena asked a young couple pushing a toddler’s stroller whether there were any parks nearby to take a walk in. The mother, once giving them directions to the local playground, introduced herself as Mary Margaret. “We’re friends of the sheriff,” she said quickly, “Very good friends.”

“And I’m the deputy sheriff,” the man who appeared to be her husband added, “I’m also a really good friend of the sheriff.”

“That’s… that’s really nice,” Kara replied awkwardly. Their large, nervous smiles made her nervous in turn, so she avoided looking at them by turning her attention to the little boy in the stroller, smiling at him and asking for his name before rushing off in the opposite direction with Lena.

They ran into Sheriff Swan at the park, walking hand-in-hand with a bearded man in a black leather jacket.

“Guys, this is my boyfriend, Killian,” Emma said in a weirdly stilted voice. She didn’t seem too pleased to see them, but her male companion was all too eager to introduce himself in what Kara surmised was an English accent of sorts.

“Killian Jones, darling,” he drawled with an upwards curl of the right side of his mouth, right eyebrow arched in a similar manner. His voice was impossibly rough yet slick at the same time. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he added, extending his hand out first to Kara. Kara noted the bling on his hand, a collection of rings that could have stocked a jewelry store, and shook his hand tentatively.

“Hi,” she chirped.

Kara and Lena noticed it at the same time, a glint of sunlight bouncing on a piece of metal hanging by the man’s opposite side. He followed their line of sight and raised his other forearm. “See something you like?” He grinned salaciously, as they both oogled the curved silver metal ending in a sharp point where one’s hand would be. “Say hello to me hook.”

“It’s his prosthetic hand,” Emma jumped in quickly, in what Lena figured was an attempt to steer the conversation away from her boyfriend’s coarse display of manners.

Ever the scientist, Lena leaned in to take a closer look. “Interesting... I’ve never seen anything like this before. Is it a bionic limb? A new model, perhaps?”

“New?” Killian snorted. “I’ve had this handy thing for over a cent –”

Emma quickly pulled on his arm, stopping him from finishing his sentence. “I think we’d better get going. Right, Killian?”

Killian seemed reluctant to end his brief conversation with Kara and Lena but he obliged, muttering, “I suppose you’re right, Swan,” and followed her as she walked away.

“Man, the people here get more and more interesting,” Kara commented once the sheriff and her goth boyfriend were safely out of earshot.

“I’ll say. The poor guy, his prosthetic hand looked awfully impractical.”

“Maybe he likes it.”

“His demeanor suggests otherwise. If it wasn’t his hand he was so obviously compensating for with that cocky look on his face, then it was something else.”

“Lena!”

“I’m just telling it like it is.”

_________________________

 

They got the call from Alex at around noon, after hours of flitting between the stores at the center of town and restocking their road trip essentials.

“We took care of the aliens,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Already?” Kara wasn’t expecting such quick success, and immediately felt guilty for underestimating her sister. The DEO were more than capable of handling threats without her, they’d done so for years.

“Yeah, so I’m on my way to Maine to fetch you guys. Drop me your location.”

Lena was all too eager to oblige as she rattled off the coordinates to their location from her own phone, but her smile faltered a moment later when Alex said, “Hmm…you guys said you were in a town? Because these coordinates don’t lead anywhere.”

“We’re in a town called Storybooke,” Kara insisted, “It’s by the coast.”

“I can see the coast but no town. Turn the tracking device on in your phone, Kara. I’ll try to ping your exact location from there.”

Kara obeyed, and prompted Lena to do the same.

A few seconds later, Alex spoke again. “Yeah, all I’m seeing here on my map is forest. The nearest town that I can find is Bangor, Kara. No Storybrooke.”

“Bangor, you said? We passed by that on our way here,” Lena piped up. “It’s about 15 minutes away from us.”

“Are you sure you can’t find _anything_ else around us, Alex? We’re literally standing in the town square!”

“No. But wherever you guys are, I’ll find you,” Alex promised. Kara told her that they’ll meet her at the edge of the town, said farewell and hung up, silently wishing the unease that was now building in her stomach to disappear.

 

Lena drove them back to the town line, which was seriously starting to become Kara’s least favorite place on Earth. “Alex just texted me to say that she’ll be here in 20 minutes,” Kara said, glancing at her phone. “She’s currently flying over Vermont."

“And you said she’ll arrive in a helicopter?”

“Yeah, the DEO’s got choppers that can render themselves invisible and bypass security sensors and force fields,” Kara responded.

“I _really_ hope on behalf of every citizen of National City that they’re using that technology wisely and ethically,” Lena said wryly. Kara had to bite her tongue to avoid mentioning all of L-Corp’s questionable technology.

At a quarter to 2, Kara saw the black helicopter in the far off distance. “She’s here,” Kara shouted and ran out of the car.

Lena followed her and peered out into the distance ahead of them. “I don’t see anything.”

“Whoops. I forgot that it might be a bit too soon for your eyes to see. The chopper’s a few miles away.”

She could see, with her X-ray vision, her sister in the passenger seat of the helicopter flying towards them, wearing pilot goggles and a look of solemn determination on her face. Her heart soared as she thought, _Alex is going to get us out of there._ If anybody in the world was up to the task of a recon mission as weird as this one, it was her sister.

The Lexus was packed with all of Kara’s and Lena’s luggage, the two of them having checked out of Granny’s after lunch. They hadn’t yet decided what they were going to do with Lena’s car, because unless the DEO helicopter was capable of lifting such a giant hunk of metal it was basically stuck in Storybrooke. Lena figured they would cross that bridge once they got to it.

And that bridge was rapidly making its way to them. Lena could see the black helicopter now as it neared, hundreds of feet in the air but advancing rapidly towards them, and was never so happy and relieved to see what she personally referred to as an aerial death trap. Kara was now hovering ten feet in the air and waving her arms back and forth and Lena did the same while on the ground.

The helicopter was about fifty yards away from them when it paused, hovering in the air for a few seconds. Lena was half-expecting the helicopter to land, or for Alex and other DEO agents to emerge from the aircraft, but to her horror the helicopter suddenly turned around and began flying back in the direction it had come from.

“Wait, no! Come back!” Kara shouted, rising up higher in the air and waving more frantically. She pulled her phone from her pocket and called Alex as fast as possible. “Alex!” She half-yelled into the phone. “Why did you guys turn around?”

“Turn around?” Alex sounded confused, disoriented. “Oh, we took a wrong turn somewhere. But don’t worry, we are on our way.”

“You didn’t take any wrong turns, Alex. We were right there in front of you guys! Didn’t you see us on the road, next to the big green sign that says ‘entering Storybrooke’?”

Alex sounded even more perplexed. “What big sign? And no, we didn’t see anyone.”

“Never mind. Just turn back around, okay?”

“If you say so.” And soon enough the helicopter was back in view, coming towards them once more. But when it got to the same spot as it had last time, it once again stopped in midair, as though contemplating another U-turn.  This time, though, Kara was prepared. She had stayed on the phone with Alex, maintaining communication so that the helicopter wouldn’t lose its route again. “Tell the pilot to keep flying forward, Alex. Don’t turn back around.”

The helicopter turned back around.

When Kara commanded that it turn back towards them again, she flew even higher up in the air, charging her eyes with heat energy then looking straight upwards, sending a laser beam into the cloudless sky. She sent another one down onto the ground, then let a few ricochet off the invisible barrier itself (making sure that Lena wasn’t in harm’s way of any of the beams). Alex had to notice the light show she was putting on, even in the broad daylight, and if not the helicopter’s sensors should have been able to pick up her laser vision’s unique heat signature.

She was wrong. “I don’t see anything, Kara. Just the open road,” Alex claimed, sounding more and more dazed and disoriented every time the helicopter made its round trip.

After the sixth failed attempt Kara realized, with twin parts horror and dread, what was going on. The barrier hung over the town was somehow hiding her and Lena from view, making them invisible to anybody outside of its perimeters. And not only that, it was casting some sort of effect on anybody that came near it, forcing them to turn away.

“You know what, Alex, never mind. We, uh, we don’t need you to get us anymore,” she spoke into the phone in a resigned voice. Her unusually defeatist tone alarmed Lena, who was so accustomed to the Kryptonian’s unyielding optimism that its absence filled her with minor panic.

Alex, who was now so spellbound she probably couldn’t even remember why she had flown to Maine so urgently in the first place, didn’t put up much of a protest. The two roadtrippers watched in silence as the helicopter flew away for good, disappearing into the thin line of the horizon.

Kara landed back onto the ground with an exhausted sigh, tired not from physical exertion but the mental turmoil she and Lena had endured the past two days in trying to leave this godforsaken town. Kara was a fighter, though. She might have let go of her final lifeline in Alex, but she refused to give up. This invisible spell, barrier, whatever the hell it was, was not going to get the best of her.

Her hands curling themselves into iron fists, she turned to her friend, who was leaning against the car with a crestfallen face. “I’ve had enough of this, Lena,” she declared. “All of this running around, looking for a way out when the solution is right in front of us.” She marched purposefully towards the passenger door of the Lexus, heart replenished with renewed determination. “I’m going to confront the mayor and sheriff of this town and force their secret to this damn place out of them.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm taking a million years to update this fic, it's because I'm participating in SQ Supernova this year and working on my fic for that. So, I apologize for the long waits, but when I finish up with that fic the updates for this one should be more frequent.

Storybrooke was quieter in the afternoon, the Sunday morning bustle having lulled to a low hum on the streets. Lena drove them back through the town’s center for what they both hoped was the last time – it was safe to say that they were feeling intense whiplash from the many trips back and forth to the town’s limits.

“Do elected officials in Maine work on Sunday?” Kara wondered aloud. She was chewing anxiously on a chocolate chip granola bar, her second one of the hour. “I feel like I should know this already.”

Lena, who was eyeing the rearview mirror at the moment, answered, “Even if they did I somehow doubt our new friends are at work right now.” They were at Mifflin Street now, the beautiful tree-lined road they had admired only the night before now somehow looking more ominous in the daylight. Lena parked the car and followed her friend up the steps to 108 Mifflin, waiting as Kara rang the doorbell.

They waited approximately twenty-five seconds before the door opened.

“Hey,” Henry greeted them warily. It was apparent to both of the women that a part of him was excited to see them, yet a larger part knew he shouldn’t have opened the door. Henry probably didn’t share the same caution for them that his mother did but still wanted to respect his mother’s feelings.

“Hi, Henry,” Kara said in response. “We wanted to know whether your mothers were home. I mean, if the mother that lives _here_ with _you_ is home. And your other mother, if she’s, y’know, around.”

Henry cocked his head at her, as if trying to discern her rambling. “Neither of them are here, if that’s what you mean. Ma’s out on a sheriff’s call, and I think Mom went with her.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“I think they said something about a commotion in the woods. Probably rowdy campers or something like that.”

Kara furrowed her brow, perplexed. That didn’t really seem at all like a reason for Mayor Mills to be out in the woods. Mayors, as far as Kara knew, didn’t typically go out in the field with their law enforcement officials. “Oh. Do… do your mothers always go out on duty together?”

“No, not usually. Only when it’s –“ Henry stopped midsentence as his eyes started to bug out, like he had caught himself from saying something that he shouldn’t have. “Um, only when they really have to.” He looked back over his shoulder, as though somebody or something in the house had called to him. “Listen, I’m not really allowed to have anyone over when my mom isn't home, but my aunt Zelena is, so if you guys wanted to come in…”

“No, that’s alright,” Lena replied. “We’ll be on our way now, but thank you.”

Once Henry had closed the door and they were halfway down the walk-up to the house, Lena spoke again. “So, I guess we’re headed for the woods now?”

“I was _so_ hoping you’d say that.”

 

___________________________

 

“Now, is this where the reported noises were coming from?” Regina wondered aloud, stepping over large branches and piles of leaves with surprising deftness and agility given her footwear. Emma kind of admired her for her brazenness in wearing high heeled boots while traipsing through a forest. 

She, on the other hand, almost tripped over the large overturned rock in front of her at the sudden break from silence. “I think so? Leroy said they were by the old well.”

After her morning walk with Killian and their run in with Kara and Lena, Emma received a call from Leroy – the dwarves had heard strange noises in the woods at night while returning from the mines.

Said well was about fifteen yards to their left, the sight of it giving Emma vague flashbacks to her return from her first involuntary trip to the Enchanted Forest. It was the setting of one of the first times after the curse that Regina had looked at her with something other than contempt and therefore held sentimental value to her.

That didn’t make the old thing look any less creepy, though.

“Emma, come take a look at this,” Regina called out to her, gesturing to a nearby tree. Emma walked over and inhaled deeply when she saw it. Three long jagged scars, each about a foot long, ran down the tree’s bark. Claw marks. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of creature on Earth might have made those.

“If those were made by the same thing that freaked the dwarves out, I guess it’s safe to say that we aren’t dealing with a typical storybook villain here,” Emma said, trying in vain to lighten the mood that suddenly enveloped them. The idea that there was some _thing_ out there in their town that was capable of such scarring on a tree unsettled them both.

Regina opened her mouth, probably to say something sarcastic in response or spit out a list of villains she knew with giant, sharp claws when she froze at the sound of twigs snapping.

Emma heard them too. The two of them turned their heads toward the direction of the noise, tensing immediately and jumping into defense poses in case the being behind the claw marks was making its reappearance. They relaxed a moment later, though, when the source of the sound stepped out from behind a tree.

“Henry!” Regina exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

Wearing an identical expression of surprise on her own face, Emma said, “I thought you said he was home, Regina.”

“He _was_.”

“I… I came out to play soccer with some friends,” Henry explained, his hands up in the air, his palms facing them.

“In the middle of the woods?” Regina asked incredulously.

“One of them accidentally kicked the ball way out here. I’m just here to fetch it.”

He was lying, and both mothers knew this immediately. Henry never lied to either of them. But her overall anxiety of the situation made Regina rethink chastising her son for his dishonesty. “Henry, it’s not safe here. Let’s go take you home.” She sent Emma a look that said, _We’ll deal with this mysterious forest creature later._

“Home…” Henry’s eyes lit up at the word in a way that made Emma raise her eyebrow. This kid was hiding something, she could feel it.

Regina and Emma escorted their delinquent son out of the forest and to the yellow bug parked by its entrance. They spent the walk lecturing Henry – well, Regina did most of the lecturing while Emma merely voiced and nodded her agreement with everything she said - on the hazards of following his mothers on their missions, because apparently he hadn’t learned from the last dozen or so times of having his life in danger. Regina, though, had the sneaking suspicion that their words were flying over his head. Maybe it was the way he simply looked around with a completely unbothered expression on his face and a sudden fascination with the surrounding trees, as though he wasn’t being lectured to at all.

They were at the mouth of the forest, Emma’s parked car in their sights in a miniature parking lot, when they spotted the silver Lexus next to it and the two figures emerging from within.

“Ugh, you _have_ to be kidding me,” Emma mumbled. It was bad enough that they had the forest mystery to deal with; Emma could really only focus on one unwanted Storybrooke visitor at a time and those women were starting to really annoy her. How she ended up running into them every hour was a mystery all on its own.

Regina overheard her and chuckled, still seeing the girls as endearing distractions rather than threats. “You know, I had forgotten about those two.”

Kara slammed the car doors shut and started to march towards them, Lena in tow. Even from a distance it was obvious they didn’t look too happy.

Registering the expressions on their faces, Regina asked. “What do you suppose their problem is now?”

“I don’t know, and I really don’t care at the moment.”

Kara and Lena were now within close shouting distance. “Wait… Henry?” Kara called out. “Weren’t you just… we just saw you at the house!”

Emma was more confused now than ever. “What are you talking about?” She asked, still walking.

“We went to the mayor’s house to look for you two and Henry was home and he said you guys were in the forest and now he’s somehow here with you guys…”

The three forest goers stopped. “Henry,” Emma began, giving him her best disapproving maternal glare, “What’s going o–” She was cut off midsentence by a deep growl. She looked over at Regina, who judging by her raised eyebrows had heard it as well. They both turned their focus sharply onto their son.

Henry’s face was contorted in the most unnatural way, with all of his teeth bared in an unsettling sneer and his eyes lit with a devilish glint. He growled again, a much louder grumbling emitted from the back of his throat, and both of his mothers jumped.

“Henry?” That was Regina. She stepped in front of him and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “Henry, what are you doing?”

Henry locked eyes with her and his irises were pitch black. “Henry!” She yelled, bile rising in her throat.

“Madam Mayor, Sheriff Swan, get away from him!” That was Kara. She was only yards away now, comprehension having dawned on her eyes now at what was about to occur. 

It happened, quite literally, in the blink of an eye. Henry blinked and then he was no longer Henry; his face sharpened, elongating, his smooth skin melting away to reveal grotesque, bony patches of pink and red. He grew in front of their eyes, rising to a seven foot frame of muscle and bone and a rough ivory exterior.

“What the – “Emma stammered, stepping back from what had been her teenage son a moment before. Regina, on the other hand, was frozen on the spot. She looked up at the creature that had taken Henry’s spot with mixed shock and horror.

“I said get _away_!”

The creature shoved Regina to the side and charged, running towards the two younger women, its sights set on Lena. Emma would later replay the scene that unfurled before her next over and over again.

Kara leapt up at the hideous being with something akin to lightning speed and slammed her elbow into its jaw. Dodging its razor sharp claws, she pummeled his face and body with punches, her fists a blur and her face dark with determination. The creature bellowed with each landed punch and every missed hit of his own that Kara expertly dodged. Emma didn’t know whether to stare in awe at the apparent effectiveness of the young woman’s blows or to hone in at the fact that her feet did not seem to be touching the ground at all.

“Stop!” Regina screamed from the ground. Managing to find her bearings, she lifted herself slowly. “Stop it! That’s my son you’re attacking!”

“This is not your son, ma’am!” Kara yelled out between punches. Speaking broke her focus for one millisecond but that was all it took; one of her blows landed clumsily and met with air.

The creature retreated one step and then, gaining momentum, stomped forward and swiped at her with one giant arm. Kara was thrown back a few feet, landing hard on the ground of the parking lot. Emma noticed cracks spreading out on the asphalt underneath her body but to her incredible surprise, not only did Kara not seem to have sustained broken bones by the sickening impact but she was back on her feet a second later. Still, Emma wasn’t about to let her fight this monster, whatever the hell it was, alone.

She had helped Regina up from the ground, wrapping her arm protectively around the brunette’s waist for a moment before letting go to stretch both arms out in front of her. Regina did the same. “Hey! Hey, Kara! Let us help you!”

“No, this thing is dangerous, you don’t know what it’s capable of!” Kara shouted back.

She was right, but that had never stopped Emma before. “You don’t know what we’re capable of, either!” Regina shot her a warning look for this revealing outburst but said nothing, only gathered up all the magic within her and prepared for a strike at the first chance.

Seizing the opportunity that Kara’s fall to the ground had given it, the beast was charging, once more, towards Lena, who up until this moment had been slowly inching backwards towards her car, watching helplessly as her friend fought. She kept walking backwards, bright green eyes wide with fright.

Kara threw herself at the creature again and the next thing Emma knew the two were airborne. 

They rose up several meters, flying around the small parking lot as they gripped one another in a headlock of some sort. Emma ducked when they hurtled in her direction, turned back and watched, mouth gaping wide open, as they disappeared into the woods behind her.

She supposed it wasn’t completely out of the realm of imagination that a creature that could shapeshift was also capable of flight, but the movement of Kara’s body suggested that it wasn’t the only one in control of the flying. In fact… was she steering them both?

Impossible. That was impossible. Even if the young woman could fly, there was no way she was strong enough for that. And yet…

They didn’t disappear for long. After a minute they reemerged from the trees, the creature’s body ripe with fresh scars and its roars now considerably lacking in their usual volume.  Emma and Regina watched as Kara managed to bring herself and the creature back to the ground after the midair struggle. She slammed them down onto the asphalt from a height of forty feet, cracking the ground once more, and wound her right arm back. With a final punch she knocked the beast out cold.

She wiped dirt out of her face and scanned the ground for her glasses, which had fallen off during the fight. Once they were found and pushed back onto her face, she first looked behind her to see whether Lena was okay, and then marched over to the incredulous audience of two in front of her.

“Are you two alright? Why didn’t you guys run away?” Her cheeks were flushed pink from the fight, chest heaving from deep breaths and bright eyes wide and alert. Dark blood that didn’t belong to her was splattered on her cardigan. Her glasses rested crookedly on her nose but that didn’t seem to affect her vision much.

Emma’s mouth was still hanging slightly, shifting her focus back and forth from Kara to the scene of the fight, leaving Regina to speak. “Don’t worry about us. Would you mind explaining to us what _that_ was all about?” She asked, gesturing towards the unconscious creature lying on the ground.

Kara followed her gaze and looked back at the thing she just knocked out, as though she had already forgotten about it. “Uh….” She began, “I can explain.” She adjusted her glasses and continued. “Um, I took a lot of martial arts classes as a kid.”

Another lie. Emma and Regina shared a glance - the former cocked her head and raised her brows in an I-told-you-so sort of way. Emma wasn’t used to being right, and she wasn’t gonna let Regina forget this.

She finally found the words to speak. “Bullshit. That didn’t look like martial arts to me.” She stepped closer to Kara, green eyes boring deeply in blue ones. “Who the hell are you, really, and how did you just beat the shit out of that thing?”

In the distance, Lena was slowly walking back towards her car, most likely to bring it closer to them.

“I kinda expected a little more gratitude for just saving your lives,” Kara responded, her tone surprisingly light and calm for someone who was being glared at. The sheepishness in her voice that they were used to hearing was gone, replaced by a confidence they had never witnessed before.  “That Martian could have easily killed you both.”

“…Martian?” That was Regina. She had her hands crossed in front of her, a stance probably worn in an attempt to regain some dignity after being shown up by Kara in the fight, Emma thought.

 “Yup. A white Martian. They’re unfortunately not nearly as friendly as the green ones.”

She was making fun of them, Regina thought. She had to be. “Are you suggesting,” Regina began, “That the creature lying there behind you –” she pointed at the creature once more, “- is from another _planet_?”

“Well, yeah. It’s an alien from Mars. That’s what makes it a Martian.” She said it so matter of factly, like she was explaining that two plus two equaled four.

“Aliens aren’t real, Miss Danvers,” Regina declared, and in spite of herself Emma almost scoffed. It was such an ironic statement coming from a fairy tale character, and she found it so amusing, the idea that a woman who befriended dragons and crossed realms and had magical abilities drew the line of belief at creatures from outer space.

“Uh, they are, actually,” Kara replied, as though Regina had just claimed that water was not wet. “Don’t you guys keep up with the news?”

Regina and Emma just looked at one another. Rendering their confusion, Kara continued, “So I’m guessing you’ve never come across one before.”

Regina huffed indignantly. “Of course we haven’t. I can’t even begin to fathom how something like this could have even stepped foot in my town without my knowledge.” Frankly, too many people have been doing that as of late, and Regina wasn’t happy about it at all. “I don’t suppose you have an idea?"

Kara shrugged. “Beats me.”

 Regina looked once more at the Martian, and her features softened at once when she remembered how it first appeared to them. “So, the alien, or whatever the hell it is… how was it able to take on our son’s appearance?”

“Martians are shapeshifters. They can take on the appearance of anyone they come into contact with. They can also fly, which explains the, uh, the flying thing earlier, which I definitely had no part in,” Kara added quickly. “Humans can’t fly, of course, and I _am_ human, obviously.”

Emma’s inner lie detector was bleeping like crazy at the last part, but she ignored it in favor of something else Kara had said that alarmed her. “You’re saying that the Martian has been in contact with Henry?”

“What if it _hurt_ him?” Regina exclaimed, horrified.

“No, no, your son is fine, we just saw him at the house.” Kara assured them both. “But this bad boy could have easily approached him disguised as someone else. Or it could have just read both of your minds and plucked your son’s image from them.”

“ _That thing can read minds, too_?”

“I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was dangerous, Madam Mayor. Henry’s alright, though, believe me when I say that.”

Regina didn’t seem entirely convinced. Unsatisfied with Kara’s assurance, she took her phone out and Facetimed Henry, who as it turned out _was_ actually safely home in his room.

After hanging up, she walked up to the alien, crouching down to take a closer look. It didn’t look half as threatening as it did minutes before, but its eerily gruesome face made her skin crawl. She had a hell of a hard time accepting the concept of extraterrestrial life forms, but this beast didn’t resemble any creature she had ever encountered or heard of in the Enchanted Forest, or in any other realm in existence.

“So,” Regina started, once she realized Kara and Emma had followed her, “What do we do about this… Martian?” She tried the word out in her mouth, and figured it didn’t sound any more ridiculous than the usual array of colorful characters she had to deal with on a regular basis.

“It could wake up any minute now, but I can move it if you’d like.” Kara said, and then backtracked. “I mean, Lena and I will try to transport it elsewhere with her car.”

As if on cue, the silver Lexus pulled up and stopped a yard away from the three of them, and Lena climbed out of it.

“There’s no need for that. I appreciate your help, Miss Danvers, but Miss Swan and I will take the reins on this from here on out.”

“And how exactly do you plan on moving the Martian without waking it up and enraging it again?”

“We have our ways. With all due respect, Miss Danvers, you have no idea what we are capable of.”

Kara opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it tight, pursing her lips and scrunching her face in contemplation. “Sheriff Swan said something similar earlier,” she began slowly. She looked down at the Martian, then turned her attention back to the two women in front of her. “You’ve been looking at me weird for beating up this guy, like I just grew a freaking tail or something, even implied that I’m hiding something about myself. But I saw you guys. Judging by the way neither of you ran away to safety, and were almost squared up to help me fight, I’d say this Martian isn’t the first strange thing you’ve faced.”

She moved closer to them, her eyes narrowed almost to slits, her blue irises hardened to steel. Emma almost admired her for it. Few people had the nerve to look at Regina like that, even if they didn’t know that she could light a fireball up their asses.

“Ever since I so much as crossed the border into this town, I’ve been feeling this... this strange energy all around. I can feel it in the air, and I feel it more strongly when around one or both of you. And when I was fighting off the Martian, that energy, whatever it is, was coming off you guys in waves, almost like you had summoned it on purpose.”

“Energy?” Regina wrinkled her nose. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“And Lena and I have been trying to leave this town for the past day and a half and we can’t, because there is something blocking our only road out of here. And I have a feeling you two are somewhat responsible for that.”

Emma’s mouth started to go dry. “What makes you think that?”

Kara paused, pursing her lips, like she had an answer but was debating on whether to voice it. “That doesn’t matter,” she replied finally. “I don’t know whether you’re deliberately trying to keep Lena and myself here or not, but that, that invisible wall thing or whatever you have at the town’s border? We need that taken down for us to leave.”

The older women shared an alarmed look over Kara’s words. Emma had been wrong - the girls weren't responsible for their town line spell having gone awry, and they knew even less than she and Regina did about what was going on. The two silently conversed on how they should respond to Kara, throwing one another small frowns and flared nostrils, debating on what they should reveal. Finally, Regina looked back at Kara and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.”

“Can’t? Or _won’t_?” That came from Lena, voice clipped and edged with ice.

“Believe me, Miss Luthor, when I say that I want nothing more than for you and Miss Danvers to go on your merry way out of Storybrooke, but unfortunately the wall cannot be taken down.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we –“ Regina said, angling her chin slightly in Emma’s direction to emphasize exactly who _we_ was referring to, “believe someone might have tampered with it.” From the way her dark eyes flitted between Kara and Lena as she said this, they knew immediately that they had been on the suspect list.

Lena’s defensive instincts kicked in at that. If there was anything in life she was equipped for other than near-death situations, it was false accusations. “It wasn’t us, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“I’m not. I know that you two couldn’t have manipulated our barrier.”

Emma nodded grudgingly in agreement. Oh, she was still very much suspicious, most especially of Kara the apparent alien-fighting wonder, but seeing as how she and Lena turned out to not even have the slightest idea of, well, anything about Storybrooke, she had to admit that her earlier assumption was wrong.

But if they didn’t screw around with her and Regina’s town line spell, who did?

And how the hell did a _Martian_ find its way to Storybrooke?

“You know,” Kara began, breaking Emma out of her thoughts, “I can help you find out what’s happened to your, uh… what exactly _is_ that thing at the town line? A force field?”

Emma raised her eyebrows questioningly at the word, but then realized that it was a pretty good cover for them. “I guess you can call it that,” she answered.

“Okay, well, Lena and I can be of assistance.”

“How?”

“I mean, I’m an investigative reporter and Lena’s a genius. We can, uh, investigate. Find intel for you guys so you can take the force field down for us to pass through.”

Regina cocked her head at that, her eyes lit with both mild surprise at Kara’s offer and slight amusement. She took one step forward, now so close to the young blonde woman that she could see tiny dirt smudges on the lens of her glasses. “You think you can manage that?” Her voice was low, the disbelief in her words sounded almost like playful teasing.

Something flashed in Kara’s eyes. Emma recognized it well, a cross between irritation at being underestimated and desire to prove herself. “We can try,” she insisted.  

“Then in that case,” Regina said, “you’re welcome to try.”

“Alright then,” Kara decided, and after a few seconds of steady eye contact with Regina, she turned to leave, heading back to the car with Lena.

“Oh, and Miss Danvers?”

Kara turned back around.

“Do try to keep this between the four of us. If folks around here knew that they are suddenly unable to leave town they would… well, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

Emma bit back a scoff. Regina was obviously bullshitting, because the citizens of Storybrooke dealt with a new villain or curse that trapped them in town like every other week. She knew that the real danger was in Kara and Lena knowing that fact.   

“Um, okay. Sure.”

“And in the meantime Miss Swan and I will take care of this… this Martian.” Regina kicked lightly at the alien’s shoulder with her heel.

“Try not to wake it up. I pissed it off pretty badly and it can seriously hurt you guys.”

“I heard you the first dozen times you told me that, Miss Danvers. Now shoo.”

 

___________________________

 

Finally, those two were in their car, driving out of the parking lot and disappearing down the road.

“You don’t really think they’re gonna find out anything useful, do you?” Emma asked once Kara and Lena had left.

“Of course not. We’ll have to do the sleuthing ourselves if we want to figure out what’s happened to our wall and how people and creatures keep finding their way in. It’s our problem to solve, they’re just a part of it.”

“And if they see something they shouldn’t?”

Hearing the worriedness in her friend’s voice, Regina looked up and over at her. She placed a reassuring hand on Emma’s shoulder and Emma had to remind herself to breathe, like she always did when Regina touched her. “We can always just erase their memories, you know.”

Emma didn’t find this potential solution reassuring. “I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

“Why not?”

“Regina, you saw the way that girl knocked the Martian out. How she looked at us with suspicion. Remember what she said about sensing energy around us?”

Regina didn’t follow what she was getting at, but unease started to creep up her spine all the same. “Yes? What about it?”

 “It’s magic. That’s what she was talking about. Regina, I think she can sense our magic.”


End file.
